Pages

May 22, 2006

G42: Red Sox 9, Yankees 5

A win is a win. 2.5.

Schilling was superb (8-5-1-0-6), Ortiz and Manny both drove in three runs and the game was a blow-out before Keith Foulke tossed some ugly BP in the ninth (including, yup, a Show Pony 2-run shot into the Monster Seats, which cut the score from 9-1 to 9-3; that's clutch, baby!).

Schilling allowed only five hits -- and three of them came with two outs in the third inning, which led to one run. The other hits were singles in the fifth and seventh.

One note on ESPN: Good god, they suck. Dave O'Brien and Rick Sutcliffe all but declared the Red Sox season over in the first inning when third base coach DeMarlo Hale did not send Mark Loretta from second on Manny Ramirez's single to short left. It turns out that Terrence Long overran the ball, but Hale could not have known that, and should not have expected it.

The ESPN guys said over and over how the Red Sox had blown the play, how their fans were "stunned" at the run not scoring and how the club had egg on their faces. ... And yet every intelligent person would have seen that Hale had made the correct call -- Long touched the ball well before Loretta reached third base, he was charging it and the play was in shallow left -- at Fenway. Not a long throw home, in other words.

The only reason I could see why Sox fans were "stunned" at the decision is that our old third base coach would have waved him in no matter what. And while stunned (perhaps), we were also thankful our 3B coach had a brain.

By the way, once Boston had taken the lead -- it turned out their season was not in jeopardy, after all -- and Hale wisely held runners at third on two occasions in the third and seventh innings, which lead to Manny Ramirez driving both of them in, both O.B. and Sut said absolutely nothing.

There was also some sweet fielding. A 6-4-3 DP ended the fifth as Alex Cora (who also went 3-for-4) moved to his right, gloved the ball and threw to second off-balance, Loretta turned a tough pivot and Kevin Youkilis scooped the ball out of the dirt. Yook also started a nifty 3-6-3 DP to end the seventh.

***

Curt Schilling (4.17 ERA) has been in a slump, allowing six home runs and 11 runs in his last two starts. On May 10, Schilling gave up eight hits and six runs over five innings to the Yankees -- Boston's only loss to New York in four games this year. He has been studying tape of his performances in the 2001 World Series in preparation for what he called "Super Bowl Monday". Schilling does have a 2.14 ERA in three home starts.

In his last two starts, Chien-Ming Wang (3.79 ERA) has allowed three runs (two earned) in 16 innings against Oakland and Texas. On May 1, Wang pitched five innings (5-6-3-4-0). Boston won that game 7-3. ... Manny Ramirez (4-for-7) and Ortiz (4-for-6) have done well against Wang.

18 comments:

It would appear that the NYY poster boy for mini-balls should be A-Rod not Jeter, per Buster Olney's report this morning on ESPN radio.

Seems that as NYY dropped the finale of their series with the Mets last night, Slappy failed to move along a single one of the eight runners who were on base during his ABs last night, and was actually double-switched out of a one-run game in the 8th inning by Torre.

Can you imagine Tito switching Ortiz - the deserving 2005 MVP -out of the line-up in anything but a blow-out scenario, perhaps inserting an airedale such as Willie Mays Hays Harris in Papi's DH spot?

scott,agree with you on Arroyo, and if there was a way to put the genie back in the bottle Theo would have done so by now.

However, with Coco missing the first 4-6 weeks of the season, where would be be without Wily Mo P? His upside is ridiculously high, but I still cringe when I watch him try to lay off the yakker. He looks like a big kid trying not to put his hand in the cookie jar....he can't resist it.

As for the blog, gotta' do better than last post on March 24 to get any serious cred...

Watching the Sox tack on three more in the 7th, I couldn’t help but smile knowing that we most likely plated two valuable insurance runs thanks to DeMarco Hale, an inning that Dale Svuem would have run us out of in years past.

In holding Cora at 3rd on Youk’s RBI double to left with no one out (as Willie Mays Hays Harris trotted home), and again on Loretta’s fly ball to medium-shallow right, Hale kept the inning going not once but twice, with Cora then scoring easily on Manny’s rope of a SF to the warning track in right.

How many innings like this did Send ‘Em Home Svuem kill in years past? Too many...as Rem opined, the guy is doing a very nice job.

1. You can never have enough runs, especially against a line-up like NYY, and with a performance like we saw from Foulke tonight.2. Foulke's recent string of decent outings proved to be nothing more than false positives. He's still not there, similar to one who thinks they're over the flu only to discover (painfully and often publicly) that they're not quite well after all.3. As redsock weighed in, Slappy again showed why he's the best in the game when it comes to late-inning, irrelevant situations, with his dinger coming after his team went down by more than a touchdown.4. Schill is officially back on his game, moving through the NYY line-up with all the finess of a lawnmower going through dogshit.

An incredible display; thank God Foulke managed three outs before he gave it all away.

I'm not sure that last night's outing proved to be anything more than a bump in the road for Foulke. His record is 2-1 with 8 holds. Prior to last night, he'd pitched 23.1 innings, giving up nine runs (2 HR) and had struck out 19 while walking only 3. At one point, he actually had a better K/BB ratio than Papelbon. While I would agree that he's not yet in 2004 form (and may never be unfortunately), I wouldn't classify his recent outings as "false positives" given the numbers. It may not always be pretty but at least he's getting the job done.

As redsock offers in his post, I could not imagine being subjected to the inane musings of a couple of wing nuts like Martinez & Sutcliffe on a nightly basis.

It's hard to believe these two guys ever played the game, and perhaps Sutcliffe's work last night was a reprise of his recent appearance as Foster Brooks on a Padres 'cast. He may be intent on hanging onto this role in much the same way Gehrig appropriated Pipp's.

Thankfully, the NESN feed was not preempted by the Bristol juggernaut, allowing those of us watching on DirectTV 623 to enjoy the more learned observations of the RemDawg, as he described Hale's decisions in holding said runners.

Here's hoping that the collective NESN/Bosox brain trust has Remy and Orsillo under lock and key for a long time. They do an outstanding job, one that none of us should ever take for granted.

Or how about that garbage about how Lowell wouldn't take third on the sac fly because it would be disrespectful to Bernie given the score? I mean, come on! He didn't take third because he couldn't do it safely, weak arm on Bernie or not. How goofy can you get.